1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to medical image analysis, and more particularly to a system and method for combinational computer aided diagnosis of disease.
2. Discussion of Related Art
With the development of major anatomical medical modalities (magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), . . . ), computer aided diagnosis (CAD) systems are of growing popularity. These modalities create very large amount of data that are tedious and challenging for the physicians to read and interpret.
These major modalities are of high cost. Many insurance agencies require authorizations for diagnostic scans and in most cases do not cover costs for screening purposes. Further, there are concerns about the radiation exposure incurred during a scan with some of the modalities. Because of these concerns the data obtained from a scan is valuable and should be investigated thoroughly.
Given the valuable nature of the volume data radiologists are typically responsible for reporting all abnormalities and pathologies inside the volume data, regardless of the original purpose of the scan. With growing data size, this becomes more and more tedious and in many cases it is difficult to cover all the details.
Given the amount of data in a typical volume, CAD systems do not process a entire scan. Each CAD system only deals with a specific type of pathologies or disease, for instance LungCAD and ColonCAD systems detect lung cancer and colon cancer, respectively.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for combinational computer aided diagnosis of disease.